Change sought for UT dorm bearing Klansman’s name

Thomas Russell, a former professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is requesting UT change the name of Simkins Hall because it bears the name of a Ku Klux Klan organizer William Stewart Simkins, according to Texas Exes.

Russell, who researched Simkins for years, says that while teaching law at UT, Simkins boasted of helping organize the KKK in Florida and after the Civil War participated in violence against blacks.

But UT officials have balked at the request, saying the aging, all-male dorm will be torn down at some point.

Jim Nicar, Texas Exes’ UT history and traditions coordinator, told Texas Exes that condemning historical figures based on present-day values is a slippery slope. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Gov. Oran Roberts, who signed UT into existence and is the namesake of Roberts Hall, chaired the secession commission that led Texas out of the Union during the Civil War, he notes. Even George Washington, whose statue is on campus, owned slaves.

“At what point do we draw the line?” Nicar asks. “While none of us today would agree with or condone Simkins’ involvement with the Klan, Russell’s article is full of what historians call ‘present-ism,’ judging persons of the past by present-day values. I certainly wouldn’t want a Simkins on the faculty today, but I understand that he was a product of his time as we are of ours.”